Being Agender in a Gendered World

By: Dawn Alyx (@queerDawn)

In today’s world of pink & blue barriers and dividing the stereotypical “interests of the sexes,” it's no wonder that the identities of the genderqueer people have become more prominent in our day-to-day life.

Two larger communities have surfaced under the umbrella term transgender – genderqueer and nonbinary. Genderqueer identities denote or relate to a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders. With this, there are also nonbinary identities, which is a catch-all category for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine‍ —‌ identities which are thus outside of the gender binary and cisnormativity.

One such identity is agender, which is having no gender identity between the common male/female identities, or any other gender identities. In the UK, a study was done among the transgender community on gender identity, 22% of those who responded listed themselves as agender.

As for representation in the media and print, only three major TV animations have characters without a specific gender, five major books or novels have featured any type of genderqueer people, and even less appear in other types of media, save for one genre. Video games, surprisingly, hold the most characters that have unspecific gendered characters, including the popular Undertale with Frisk, the game’s main character, who never speaks and appears androgynous.

Those are only the pieces of media with positive depictions of the nonbinary and genderqueer communities. One popular movie with such horrid representation of the community was Zoolander 2, where Benedict Cumberbatch acted as a character with no gender, and his character was the butt of the joke, which is what nonbinary and genderqueer people face daily.

Growing up and not agreeing with your body is one thing; seeing yourself devoid of your anatomy is another. It can be a troubling experience, self-hate and even worst being AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth), where you grow up supposed to hate your body.

Finding my gender identity has been a huge step in the direction of loving myself, even with my constant gender dysphoria, I find myself loving myself more each day, my personality, my smile, all of the things that actually make me who I am, not my identity or sexuality.

The world sees me as an oddity, and even as someone with a mental disorder just because I don’t identify with any gender or my sex. I have had women call me misogynistic because I don’t identify as female. I have been called many horrible things, and not once have I said anything back. This is me fighting back. This is me educating others who may not understand my identity, who don’t feel the same way, offering a glimpse into what I feel.